February 19 - Anointed to preach

You’re listening to OKY. The place where we discuss what we believe and why we believe it to be true! This week, however, we are going to put a hold on the conversations dealing with why we believe what we believe. Today Kristi, Gavin and I travel to Costa Mesa California where we hope to plant a church by the end of the year. So I’m going to ask you all week long to pray with us. So I will share short prayers with you here on this podcast all week until we get back next Tuesday. In fact, I will be keeping you updated along the way so you know exactly what is happening and how to be praying for us. 

 

I also wanted to say a huge thank you to all of you who have sent some support to us while we are heading out. This is greatly appreciated and so incredibly helpful. We will be attending a conference that you have held us attend. We will be meeting with a few employment options while there, and will be praying over the city.

 

When we get back, I will be launching our online church. So be watching for that so you can join our journey at a deeper level. 

 

Our prayers over this week will be short and sweet. But I will give you direction as we pray, and will be asking you to pray the same thing for us. . As well as for you in the context you live in. We believe that each of us are called to ministry to those around us. So you are just as called as we are to minister to the community you live in. 

 

Let me read Luke 4:14 - 21

 

“Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside. He was teaching in their synagogue, and everyone praised him. 

 

He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: 

 

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” 

 

Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, “today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

 

Jesus is reading Isaiah 61:1-2 here. Now the scrolls weren’t broken up into verses. So it wasn’t like Jesus just opened a Bible to this verse and read it. Plus, scrolls were written in one long roll. And then rolled up so that the right side was able to roll up the scroll as the left side unrolled. Hebrew is read from right to left. But 61 chapters into it, means that 61 chapters of material needed to be unrolled and rolled back up into the opposite side. Yet Jesus seems to just unroll and go straight to the place that he was looking for. 

 

Then he says, “today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

 

Everyone would have been amazed at his quick handling of the scripture, and his ability to get to the place he wanted with such ease. 

 

It makes me long for two things. 

1. Jesus was lead by the Spirit and empowered
2. The ability to navigate scripture so easily, that I can find the right passages for the context of the people I am ministering to. Scripture is vital for revealing the nature of God. My prayer for you and for me is that God would make us so diversified in our memorization of scripture, that we are able to easily find answers for whatever we walk through. So God, let the scriptures come alive. Let us be so aware of your revelation in them, that we are able to easily point to scripture as we lead others into your presence. 
3. I pray that we would be anointed to preach the gospel. Jesus wasn’t worried about the people he walked in and spoke to. If you knew how important this text was, you would know how scandalous it would have been for Jesus to say that He was fulfilling this Scripture. Yet he had an anointing to preach truth even if it wasn’t something that people would have liked. He simply spoke the truth in confidence. My prayer, is that you and I would be able to speak truth to the people around us. That they would hear the truth about God in a way that makes sense, instead of frustrates them. 
4.  

Please continue to pray this for us as well as for yourself. Let’s be people who God uses to show others his goodness and grace! Let’s be people full of God’s anointing. 

 

Now go and be light to someone in your community. Preach the gospel in your work place. Preach the gospel in your school. Be the gospel to everyone around you as you live out the life, that God designed for you to be in as you represent Christ.